McSally, a blunt-talking former Air Force combat pilot, ran unsuccessfully for Arizona’s other Senate in November, losing narrowly to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema. McSally is a favorite of Senate leadership including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who had urged her appointment.

President Donald Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn said on Tuesday he knew lying to the FBI was a crime as he stood by his guilty plea in a case stemming from the investigation into possible collusion between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with Sergei Kislyak, Russia ambassador in Washington at the time. In a filing with the court, a lawyer for Flynn had noted that he was not warned during an FBI interview that lying would be a crime, but an attorney for Flynn told the court on Tuesday during a sentencing hearing that the retired lieutenant general was not entrapped.

In the story of St. Boniface, a Thunder Oak decorated with lit candles and gilded apples was glowing in the dark forest one Christmas day in 8th century Germany. The pagan god Thor was to be appeased with a human sacrifice. But Wynfred, an English Christian missionary later to be known as St. Boniface, split the giant oak into four parts with one stroke of an ax, revealing a small fir tree nearby ... the first Christmas tree, perhaps.

"The only thing he said is that we would take a look at it," White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders told reporters. "Nothing further at this point beyond that ... nothing committal at all in that process." Turkey's foreign minister said on Sunday that Trump told Erdogan that Washington was working on extraditing the cleric, Fethullah Gulen, a former Erdogan ally who has lived in self-imposed U.S. exile for nearly two decades. Asked about the comment on Monday, another White House official said only that Trump did not commit to extraditing Gulen when he spoke to Erdogan at the Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires last month.

Opinion/Editorialgeekfesthttp://geekfest.com/showthread.php?1626296-Trump-willing-to-look-at-extraditing-Turkish-cleric-but-noncommittalTwo migrant youths from Honduras killed in Mexico: officialshttp://geekfest.com/showthread.php?1626292-Two-migrant-youths-from-Honduras-killed-in-Mexico-officials&goto=newpost
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 04:40:32 GMTThe bodies of two slain Honduran migrant youths were found in the Mexican border city of Tijuana over the weekend, officials said on Tuesday, in a sign of the dangers facing Central Americans in Mexico as they seek asylum in the United States. The prosecutors' office in Tijuana said in a statement it was investigating the deaths of the two youths, who showed signs of having been stabbed and strangled. Alden Rivera, the Honduran ambassador to Mexico, said the two teens were from Honduras and that the attack on them had taken place on Saturday afternoon.

New Zealand warned Google to "take responsibility" for its news content Wednesday, after the internet giant broke a court order suppressing the name of a man charged with murdering a British backpacker. An Auckland court granted the man interim name suppression this month but Google revealed his identity in an email to subscribers of its "what's trending in New Zealand?" service. Justice Minister Andrew Little said the breach was unacceptable and he had made his views known to Google executives at a meeting in parliament on Tuesday night.

President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia could easily make and deploy land-based intermediate-range missiles if the United States made good on a threat to quit a landmark nuclear arms control treaty. The United States has accused Russia of flouting the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty signed by Washington and Moscow during the Cold War and has said it will quit it unless Russia comes back into compliance.

Opinion/Editorialgeekfesthttp://geekfest.com/showthread.php?1626267-Cher-ditches-Facebook-Google-for-amp-apos-conspiring-with-Russia-to-destroy-our-democraMore People Have Gotten a Flu Shot Than This Time Last Year, CDC Sayshttp://geekfest.com/showthread.php?1626266-More-People-Have-Gotten-a-Flu-Shot-Than-This-Time-Last-Year-CDC-Says&goto=newpost
Wed, 19 Dec 2018 03:34:39 GMT